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Economic Feasibility of Community-based Fish Culture in Seasonally Flooded Rice Fields in Bangladesh and Vietnam

Madan M. Dey
The WorldFish Center, Penang, Malaysia

Mark Prein
The WorldFish Center, Penang, Malaysia

A. B. M. Mahfuzul Haque
Proshika, Ramna, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Parvin Sultana
The WorldFish Center, Penang, Malaysia

Nguyen Cong Dan
Research Institute for Aquaculture No. 1, Ha Bac,Hanoi, Vietnam

Nguyen Van Hao
Research Institute for Aquaculture No. 2, Ministryof Fisheries—Vietnam, Ho-Chi-Minh City, Vietnam

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

During the rainy season in extensive river floodplains and deltaic lowlands, floods lasting several months render the land unavailable for crop production for several months each year. These waters are considerably underutilized in terms of managed aquatic productivity. This raises the opportunity to enclose parts of these annually occurring floodwater areas to produce a crop of specifically stocked aquatic organisms aside from the naturally occurring ‘wild’ species that are traditionally fished and are not affected by the culture activity, overall resulting in more high-quality,nutrient-dense food production and enhanced farm income for all stakeholders, notably the poor. The WorldFish Center and its national partners recently tested two systems in a community based management approach in Bangladesh and Vietnam: (i) concurrent rice-fish culture in shallower flooded areas, and (ii) alternating rice and fish culture in the deep-flooded areas. Results indicate that community-based fish culture in rice fields is technically feasible, economically viable and socially acceptable. It can increase fish production to about 600 kg=ha=year in shallow flooded areas and up to 1.5 t=ha=year in deep-flooded areas, without reduction in rice yield and wild fish catch. For the overall system and in the trials conducted, an additional income of US$135 per ha in southern Vietnam, and up to US$437 per ha in Bangladesh were achieved, which is an increase of 20% to 85% over the previous profitability. The communities neighboring the trial sites have been adopting the technologies widely.

Keywords: Community-based management, Floodplain agriculture, Rice-fish culture, Economic feasibility

Location:

Start Date:

End Date:

Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Non-commodity: Performance

Objectives:

The WorldFish Center and its national partners tested concurrent rice-fish culture in the shallower flooded areas and alternating rice and fish culture in the deep-flooded areas of Bangladesh and Vietnam through a community-based management system over a three-year period (1998–2000). Under this approach, fish is cultured communally during the flood season while the same land is cultivated with rice during the dry season by individual farmers in their separately owned plots. The main objective of this paper is to assess the economic feasibility of these options.

Methodology:

A sound methodology was developed for this study after a review of a number of different earlier investigations and through group discussions among personnel of participating agencies as well as with the participating farmers. The following steps were followed in implementing the study.Identification of Landscape=Project Sites After collecting relevant information on potential sites through there view of secondary sources and reconnaissance field visits by multidisciplinary teams, several rounds of group discussions were conducted together with the users in each potential site. In selecting project sites, both the agroecological condition of the landscape and the socioeconomic institutional aspects of the users of the landscape were considered. For each project site, a control site with a similar agroecological environment was selected. The project was implemented in four areas of Bangladesh representing the floodplain ecosystems of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers,and in two areas of Vietnam representing the Red River and Mekong River floodplains. The project areas represent varied biophysical environments. These can be categorized as shallow and medium flooded (with50 to 150 cm flooding depth) and deep-flooded (150 to 250 cm flooding depth). The flooding is generally uncontrolled in Bangladesh and in the Mekong River floodplains of southern Vietnam, but it is controlled in the shallow=medium flooded Red River delta in northern Vietnam. Sites in Bangladesh The dominant farming system in the shallow- and medium-flooded project areas in Bangladesh (Narail and Muktagacha-Mymensingh) is HYV(high-yielding variety) winter rice (known as Boro rice) during the dry sea-son grown with irrigation, followed by transplanted deep water Aman rice during the rainy season. In the deep-flooded project areas in Bangladesh (Kuliarchar-Kishorganj and Brahmanbaria), farmers usually grow single-crop irrigated HYV Boro during the dry season (January to June) and keep the land fallow during the rest of the year. In these areas, late harvest of Boro does not allow the establishment of a deep water rice crop before the arrival of the flood (in May=June). In each of the four project areas in Bangladesh (Kuliarchar-Kishorganj, Brahmanbaria, Narail, and Muktagacha-Mymensingh) two project sites were selected. A few of the project sites were discontinued due to various social and technical reasons and new replacement sites were selected. Each of the project sites had unique agroecological characteristics. A range of variables including biophysical (water quality, soil quality),agricultural (input use, crop yield, fish culture, fish catch) and socioeco-nomic (input and output price, profitability, fish consumption) variables were monitored in both the control and project sites. In addition, group performance (attendance in committee=group meetings, number of conflicts aroused, number of conflicts resolved) was also monitored in the project sites. This information was used in analyzing the impact of the community-based fish culture approach in the flooded rice ecosystem,namely the impact of both the technology and the community-based management mechanism. Monitoring was done mostly by researchers and NGO representatives because users were very busy in managing the site.

Source of Information: Aquaculture Economics & Management, 9:65–88, 2005 ISSN: 1365-7305

Article Link (Online Journal): DOI: 10.1080/13657300590961591

Funding Source:

Budget:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

Results of the trials conducted over a three-year period (1998–2000) in Bangladesh and Vietnam indicate that community-based fish culture in flooded rice fields is technically feasible, economically viable and socially acceptable. After three years of project implementation with a small number of trial farmers, increasing numbers of farmers have become convinced of the technical feasibility and economic viability of this technology.Inland capture fisheries are the most threatened globally, with a constant negative trend (FAO, 2002). These fish are of highest importance to the rural poor for income, nutrition and food security, but the demand is increasing, and that is reflected in constant price increases. Fish also have a high value for nutrition of the poor due to their nutrient density and quality (protein, oils, micronutrients) that is in highly bio-available form in most small fish species.Fish production from the fenced floodplain areas can be increased at least two- to ten fold over the natural catch through the culture activities,as shown from this work in Bangladesh and Vietnam. Harvests are in bulk and therefore are sold on the market, producing cash returns that are shared among group members, including the landless. Capture of non stocked, small indigenous species by landless with traditional fishing methods within the culture areas during the culture period is specifically permitted by the groups, and thereby ensure their continued supply of protein and income over the culture season from the fenced areas. Cash income will increase for all involved, notably for the landless relative to their base income. In the longer term, the approach aims at providing the rural populations in the floodplain areas with an equitable source of additional income and supply of fish on a seasonal basis, both from natural fish production, as well as from stocked culture species. This will directly benefit the members of the communities involved, but also fish consumers outside the culture areas due to increased supply on the markets, thereby countering the negative trend of inland fisheries production. The main technical limitation of this approach is the vulnerability of the system during heavy floods, which can destroy the fences resulting in high losses of stocked fish and low recovery rates at harvest. Subsequently,a poor harvest can trigger social conflict. A delayed outset of the rainy season is also a limiting factor; it shortens the length of the fish culture period and thereby reduces fish yields. The availability of fingerlings of species (desired by farmers) in appropriate sizes and quantities for stocking can pose problems and should be planned for. The presence of, or possibility of forming, rural organizations and=or farmers groups, is essential for successful adoption of this approach. The community-based fish culture in rice fields is not suitable for areas where framers are highly adverse to any form of group arrangements. Although this study in Vietnam and Bangladesh demonstrated the feasibility of the community-based fish culture systems, much more work is needed to understand the social and institutional viability of these approaches under different sociocultural and institutional environments,and to design appropriate institutional arrangements for different social settings. Further assessments on the attributes of successful group approaches and the reasons for spontaneous adoption and spread of the technology are needed. Additional improvements in fish culture management are also possible, potentially leading to greater income.

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